


Way Down We Go

by ClarkeStetler, Goosenik



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Avengers Family, BAMF Kate Bishop, Big Brother Harley Keener, Clint Barton & Kate Bishop Friendship, Domestic Avengers, Established Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote, Established Harry Osborn/Peter Parker, Gay Harry Osborn, Harley Keener & Peter Parker are Siblings, Kate Bishop Is a Good Bro, Kate Bishop is Clint and Nat's Kid, M/M, Minor Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers/Tony Stark, Minor Clint Barton/Natasha Romanov, Parent Tony Stark, Parksborn, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is Venom's Host, Possessive Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Post-Venom (Movie 2018), Protective Harley Keener, Protective Peter Parker, Protective Venom Symbiote (Marvel), Teen Peter Parker, Tony Stark Acting as Harley Keener's Parental Figure, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure, Venom Symbiote Loves Eddie Brock, stuckony - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:20:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29366136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClarkeStetler/pseuds/ClarkeStetler, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goosenik/pseuds/Goosenik
Summary: After being attacked and forcibly separated from Eddie Brock, Venom bonds to Peter Parker in order to seek both revenge on the LIFE Foundation and any evidence of his previous host. Peter Parker isn't exactly thrilled about this turn of events and turns to the Avengers for help managing his new symbiote.
Relationships: Eddie Brock/Venom Symbiote, Peter Parker & Venom Symbiote, Peter Parker/Harry Osborn
Comments: 38
Kudos: 158





	1. Venom: LIFE Happened

“No,” Eddie said, laughing, and it was always good when Eddie laughed. Everything got warm and his shoulders shook. It was a full-body laugh, the kind a lot of humans didn’t do because it made other people look or frown. Eddie was like that. He never cared if people looked-- it was the reason he spoke so carelessly to Venom outside. Venom’s host was brave and independent from other humans like that. “No, V. We don’t need McDonalds. We had that last night.”

 _ **Eddieee,**_ Venom complained, curling around his arm. _**But fries Eddie! And the cubed onions, you love the cubed onions!**_ He moved a little faster, thinking about the meat that wasn’t meat but was still so good, about the crunch of the fries. _**Eddieeeee...**_

Because here was the thing- when Venom wanted or needed something, unless it was eating people, Eddie usually said yes eventually. He liked the things they did together- liked climbing, liked eating lots of food and chocolate, liked running fast and sometimes eating bad people. Venom's human was brave and smart and he liked being part of them, which was… new. New and different and exciting, regardless of the months they’d spent together.

Eddie let out a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Fine,” he allowed, and Venom rejoiced as Eddie turned, heading down a different street, cutting across alleys. “You’re gonna make us fat, V. You know that, don’t you? How are you going to climb up skyscrapers when you’ve got a potbelly?”

Venom laughed. _**No potbelly. I eat more of your food than you eat. So I get bigger and you don’t, and I won’t have a potbelly until I want one.**_ He manifested beneath Eddie’s hoodie and flowed along Eddie’s back, tracing the tattoos he knew so well. Eddie had so many tattoos. Humans couldn’t feel the ridges or whirls of these older ones, really, but Venom could. He hadn’t understood _tattoos_ for a long time, but they were decoration apparently, and Eddie said they hurt.

His human was like that. Undergo pain for this kind of beauty.

Eddie shifted slightly, rolling his shoulders back, sending the tattoos shifting and dancing against Venom’s tendrils. Eddie could never decide if it was ticklish or something else, something warmer and sharper but equally sensitive. Venom liked to test that reflex out.

“People are going to see my shirt moving and have questions,” Eddie informed him, but it wasn’t a real reprimand. He jogged across the street and Venom shifted across Eddie’s chest, flattening and focusing at the soft rumbling sound behind them. The rumbling had been continuing for a while now, one of dozens of cars on the street. This particular car kept turning when they turned. The rumbling should have gone a different way by now, should have diverted away from them.

 _ **Eddie?**_ Venom poked out from behind his hoodie very, very slightly so he could look behind his human. _**That car has been following us. Do you know them?**_

Eddie didn’t look right away, then glanced back casually, scanning the road before turning forward and continuing again. “No,” he said, voice tightening a little as trepidation flickered through their minds, always joined. “You’re sure they’re following us?”

 _ **Been following us a long time. Kept waiting for them to turn.**_ Venom swirled across more of Eddie’s skin, being careful not to be obvious. He wanted to be able to shield him quickly if they needed. _**Don’t trust it. Can’t see in the windows and it’s night.**_ He looked around quickly, using Eddie’s eyes. Not many places to go. There were a few, but nowhere _good._ Venom liked to be high or to be in the subway. He didn’t like Eddie in the subway, but if he was wearing Venom it was okay. It was a good place for fighting, in the abandoned tunnels.

“All right. Don’t come out yet. We don’t know what it is.” Eddie raised a hand, massaging at his chest, rubbing against Venom softly. “It could be someone like Skirth, a lead on a job or something. It might be fine.”

Venom growled, but conceded the point. Eddie was a journalist and he wrote so much about so many things, sometimes people wanted to talk to him, to tell him their stories. He understood that. Venom told Eddie stories, too. His human listened well and asked good questions and he understood things that you didn’t always say.

 _ **I will stay,**_ he promised his human now, rubbing back against his hand. He loved it when Eddie touched him. It made him feel less like a _parasite_ and more like something else, like part of Eddie. Eddie rubbed the back of his neck when he thought. Anne rubbed her fluffy cat when she talked. Dan often rubbed Anne’s knee with a thumb. It was a normal touch and it was nice. _**Could be nothing.**_

Eddie chuckled and ducked into an alley, then up into a doorway, out of sight of the main road. A minute passed, then two, and the car turned onto the road, white and nondescript. Eddie waited, then stepped off the doorstop when the driver’s window was even with them. The car stopped and Eddie rapped on the glass with his knuckles.

“Hey, there,” he said cheerfully when the window started to roll down, a man in a dark t-shirt and vest looking at him evenly. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“You’re Eddie Brock, right?” The man’s eyes flickered over Venom’s other slowly, assessing, and Eddie tilted his head. Venom stayed still, unhappily. His human was _famous._ People knew him from the internet. Knowing Eddie’s name was normal, it was okay. That didn’t mean anything.

“That’s right,” he agreed carefully, slipping his hands into his pockets. The man nodded slowly, then reached out and pressed a button in the car.

Instant agony.

Eddie dropped to the ground, screaming along with Venom as their bodies vibrated and tore and knit themselves back together. It was that _sound,_ that goddamn sound, the exact same as the one Anne had played on them _twice_ and there was nothing like it in the world. It was like being burned by the rocket, or the videos on electrocution he had seen, or like being ripped off of Eddie. Except that he _was_ actually being ripped off Eddie, he realized in horror, vibrated away from his host before sinking back into his skin again.

Eddie curled into a ball, hands clawed over their ears in an effort to try to lessen the noise. The vibrations got worse as the seconds passed and his human reached out, catching Venom when their bodies split, pulling him back again and again as his voice finally broke, keeping his symbiote with him even as Venom writhed, unable to control his motions. The noise stopped for a moment and Eddie slumped into the dirt, breathing hard.

“V?” he managed, pressing a hand over his heart, where Venom had buried himself under his other’s skin. “V, you okay? We okay?”

Venom buried himself deeper, making the ball smaller with a tiny whimper he was embarrassed of. _**We’re okay,**_ he agreed, and cuddled a little closer to Eddie’s heart, the sensation of it and the warmth soothing. **We need to run.**

Eddie made a noise of assent, pushing himself onto his hands and knees as the door of the car opened, feet landing in the alleyway beside them. Venom started to move, spreading through Eddie’s body so he could take over and get them out of there.“Go fuck yourself,” Eddie said to the other man, voice rough and hoarse from the screaming, but then the sound was playing again and his human only managed to crawl a few steps before falling again, wrapping himself in a ball again like he could muffle the sound by the time it reached Venom, still mostly curled in his host’s chest. The sound increased in pitch, and it was _too much too sharp too harsh-_

And Venom pulled away, reacting on instinct long buried and trained into his species, pulling away from his host in an effort to escape the noise, escape the situation, his mind no longer coherent. He realized his mistake instantly, the world too large and too hollow, too cold as it seeped into his form, the air polluted and cloying the way it always was when he was out on his own.

“V, you can’t breathe,” Eddie was saying hoarsely, reaching out for the symbiote clumsily, and Venom moved to connect again as the noise cut off abruptly once more.

Glass slammed down around Venom and he screamed and slammed against the containment, his human’s fingers brushing against the thick material in futility. The air inside the tube was purifying even as Venom moved around to find a crack or hole or any opening at all, and he recognized the containment tube with a sort of violence. LIFE. This was the LIFE foundation again, this was _theirs,_ he was trapped, his human was outside-

“V!” Eddie stumbled to his feet and the containment tube was set aside, the man who had wielded it slamming a fist into the chest and stomach of Venom’s other. Eddie stumbled, trying to grab him, and the man picked up a brick, smashing it down on Eddie’s temple hard. Blood sprayed across the glass of the tube as Eddie hit the ground. He tried to roll onto his side, dragging himself closer to Venom’s container, still trying to help him, still trying to protect him, even as he bled. Venom shoved himself against the container, desperately trying to find a hole, a crack, _anything,_ anything it took to get to his human where he belonged.

“V,” Eddie said roughly, reaching out again, and the tube was lifted, the stranger landing a hard kick to Eddie’s jaw that sent Venom’s host crashing back into the brick wall. Eddie dropped, bright blood brilliant both against the dirt smeared across his stubble-covered cheek as well as where it was dripping down the side of Venom’s tank, and he didn’t get back up. Venom froze, unable to move, fury and shock waging a war for control.

“Don’t worry. The recon and disposal team will be around for you in a minute,” the man said, turning and carrying Venom back toward the car.

Venom screamed, empty and silent in this cold world where he didn’t have his host, and slammed against the container hard enough to unsteady the person carrying him. He couldn’t look away from the blood, couldn’t look away from Eddie laying there so still.

Eddie was never still. Eddie was always running and laughing and talking and eating, jogging and socializing. Eddie was _never_ still. Venom threw himself against the container again in panic and desperation. He would get free and get to Eddie and heal him and then they would _eat_ this human even if Eddie said no because Eddie was good but Venom was _not_ and this human hurt Venom's Eddie and mercy wasn’t going to happen. He needed to get free, needed to get to Eddie, needed to heal him _right now._

But the tank had been built to keep symbiotes in, and though he managed to topple the container to the ground once, he was quickly picked up again. “Stop it,” the man snapped at him, opening the side of the van and fitting the container into a holding unit there, “Or I’ll tell the guys to put Brock through a meat grinder.” He slammed the door shut and got back in the car, and then they were driving, further and further, and all Venom could do was lash uselessly against the glass and hope that the bumps under the wheels weren’t his human.

* * *

They stopped. Venom couldn’t see anything from the low position of his holding unit, so he didn’t know where they were. LIFE? No, they had blown up LIFE, he and Eddie had destroyed it. They had to be somewhere else. Venom didn’t know how long they’d been driving. Everything felt different outside a host. Time didn’t move the same. Light didn’t work the same. Nothing did. Everything was too-sharp and in neon colors that didn’t make sense the way they did when Venom was bonded.

Even in the darkness, everything almost glowed.

“Yeah, yeah,” the man said, and Venom realized slowly that he was on the phone, this fact enough to distract the symbiote from watching the blood dry on the glass. “Yeah, I have it. We’re at the exchange location now. Did they pick up Brock?”

Venom moved close, listening hard. Was Eddie okay? Was he safe? Of course he was never really safe, not without Venom, but was he okay?

“Yeah, sure.” The man laughed. “Tell them to hurry up already, this thing is freaking me out.” He hung up and got out of the car. There was a beat of nothing, and then the door slid open, the man peering down at Venom as he smoked a cigarette. He blew smoke at the tank. “Ugly as sin,” he muttered, shaking his head. “That’s just so fucked up.”

Venom managed a hissing sound, whirling around the cage. He wished he could manifest, could show his teeth and use his voice and make this stranger- who was he calling ugly? He was no treat to look at himself- see what _freaky_ was.

The man blanched slightly, shaking his head, and looked away. “So fucking gross,” he muttered, spinning a gun around his hand absently. Something blurred in the distance behind him and Venom tried to examine it curiously, then drew back away from the glass quickly as the gun was caught by what looked like a white rope, whipping out of the LIFE agent’s hand in one fast motion. “What the f-”

“Hey, there,” a voice said cheerfully, the vehicle rocking as something landed on top of it. Venom twirled around the tank, trying to look, but whoever it was, they were on top of the vehicle completely and not leaned forward enough for Venom to see anything. “Sorry, but you’re just looking _so_ sketchy with your white van and the abandoned parking lot and the gun. The bald look doesn’t really help either, dude. What’s in the van? Drugs are one thing. People are a different one. Let’s hope it’s drugs.”

White rope-like webbing slammed into the man’s chest, apparently hard enough to knock him onto the ground, and a figure in red landed lightly on the ground where the man had been standing a second ago. The creature was all red with white eyes and, for a disorienting moment, Venom found himself wondering if it was some strange, young, sickly symbiote. The creature was skinny, far too much so to be healthy, but his eyes were the right shape, his red deep and rich, embellished by blue here and there. Was it a symbiote? Something new, something that was maybe different, like he was?

The maybe-symbiote reached out, pulling Venom’s container out of the van and pulling him outside to set on the pavement in the light. It crouched beside the tank, tilting its head down at Venom, clearly studying him. “Whoa,” the creature said slowly, and the voice wasn’t quite right for a symbiote, either… although maybe it just had an exceptionally young host? No, that wasn’t right- Riot had had a young host, and the voice had been very young too, but it had still sounded like a symbiote. This creature didn’t, so what _was_ it?

This line of questioning was immediately solved when the creature reached up, pulling at its neck and peeling a mask off its face, leaving utterly human features peering down at him. Not a symbiote, just a human. No symbiote would let its host do something that stupid, nor would the mask lines be so clean where they were settled around brown hair like a hat. Large, curious eyes studied Venom, amazement flickering across the face there, and Venom looked back at the little human in interest. Did he have powers? What were the white missiles he was using?

“What the hell is this?” the human asked, blinking in fascination. The LIFE agent on the ground grunted and the young human pulled his mask back down quickly, turning to look down at him. “What is this? Some kind of nanotech? Who do you work for? This isn’t Starktech or anything Oscorp is working on.”

“They aren’t the only players,” the agent muttered.

“They are in New York,” the masked human disagreed, frown obvious in his voice. 

“Just don’t open it, SpiderIdiot,” the man growled. “You know, I’ve always-”

“I’m gonna stop you right there, because you’re monologuing to stall for time for your friends to show up.” The newcomer shook his head, waving a hand, and scooped the containment unit up in one arm. Venom felt a small chuckle rise. Eddie never had patience for monologuing bad guys either. Pain lanced through Venom at the thought of Eddie, and he tried to focus on the humans around him. “I’m gonna take this.”

“What?! No! You can’t just-”

The masked human made a sharp motion with one hand and webbing shot away from his wrist, covering the agent’s mouth and cutting off his angry protests. “I told ya. I’m stopping you right there. I gotta get this elsewhere. Bye!” He took a bounding step forward, more webs appearing, these ones flying up and into the air. Venom watched in fascination as they caught the edge of a building, and then the human was yanking up and they were _flying,_ swinging through the air, flipping and soaring, up through the skyscrapers even faster and smoother than Venom could climb.

They stopped atop a pointed skyscraper and the human pushed his mask up again, holding Venom’s containment unit up to the lights of the city to examine him. “Nanotech,” he murmured slowly, frowning a little. “Except it looks organic. Biotech, maybe?” He turned the case, examining the keypad on the side curiously, and squinted at the numbers there. “Two, three, six, and seven were pressed,” he murmured. “So that’s sixteen possible combinations.”

Venom swirled around the unit unhappily. He didn’t know the code. He needed out. If the little human… Eddie had said human offspring were called _babies-_ and there was a pinch of hurt but _Eddie has to be okay-_ if the baby opened it, they could host and he could run back, find Eddie, and it would be okay. He needed to find his Eddie.

And the human who had hurt them, he noted internally, rage flickering back to life. He was still just tied up there. His ‘friends’ were coming and then he’d just be free. Venom wouldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t be free. He’d torn Venom from his Eddie, he had made Venom's human bleed. He wouldn’t start with the head of the man who had hurt them, no. He’d eat the arms and legs, he’d eat slow. He’d eat the head _last._ Bloodlust made his form spike as he moved a little faster. He needed to get out so he could do it. He would hunt them all down and kill them all for hurting them.

The young human started tapping into the keyboard, buzzing issuing every few seconds after, and then he paused, turning the tube carefully and brushing his thumb against the spatters of Eddie’s blood that were sprinkled across the glass.

“Is this _blood?”_ he murmured, forehead wrinkling as he scraped his thumb across the blood and raised it to his nose. Venom paused in his movement, confused. Humans couldn’t smell things like that from such a small sample size, could they? He couldn’t tell. He and Eddie had matched too well, there had been so few spots where one ended and the other began. The human shook his head, troubled.

“God.” He turned the tube again and continued typing into the keypad. _Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. Beep._ The young human brightened when the glass slid back. “Okay, cool! So it isn’t smooth, it looks organic and semi-” he broke off with a shout as Venom shot toward his chest, burrowing down and soaking into the host body, starting the bonding process. “What the _fuck-”_ the child gasped, grabbing at Venom and trying to yank him off, shockingly successful at it for his small muscles. Venom seeped through the gloves instead, soaking into the skin of his hands and arms. 

“Shit, shit, no- shit, what-” the kid was gasping, and the world was burning silver-white for a moment, and then everything was tilting and then they were laying on their side, the world pulsing and burning-hot around them.

They could taste panic, sharp and chemical like the fingernail polish remover Anne liked to use, in the back of their mind. The human was gasping in hoarse breaths, shaken and frightened, confused and alarmed and feverish. That was right, Venom remembered suddenly. Eddie had been an unstable host at first, too. The body got weaker before it accepted the bond and settled down again.

Venom burrowed deeper for a moment, wrapping himself around his host’s cerebral cortex, brushing over his mind, sinking into his memories. The child was eighteen, officially a man in human society. His name was Peter Parker. He was intelligent, very much so. He was _bright,_ bright and kind in a way that was almost painful. Memory upon memory of helping strangers, laughing with family, aiding those around him. Eddie, Venom understood suddenly, wasn’t extraordinary in his kindness. This small human was far, far more selfless than Venom’s other, was far, far kinder than Eddie had ever been.

It didn’t mean he was better than Venom’s real host in any way. Eddie was smarter. Selfishness meant that he could escape, survive, fend for himself, fend for _them._ It meant that Eddie was taken advantage of less, got himself into less trouble for the sake of others who didn’t appreciate him. Venom could find scores of instances in his new host’s mind where this exact thing happened. Eddie made better decisions and didn’t lose any sleep over them. No, if anything, this host’s personality was weaker than Eddie’s for all its goodness and brightness.

“What…” Peter pushed them onto hands and knees unsteadily, finding balance quickly. “What the hell was that?” he breathed, massaging at his chest where Venom had first tried to sink in. It was fascinating. For all this human’s _mental_ weakness… his physical form was different. Venom scanned their new memories, located the answer quickly. He had been bitten by a spider, a tiny harmless bug, and it had changed him. He was stronger than other humans. _Much_ stronger. Faster, too.

A perfect host with which to take his revenge, then. A perfect host to find and reach Eddie again.

“I gotta… I gotta go home.” Venom’s host stumbled to his feet and took unsteady steps toward the edge of the roof.

 _ **No.**_ Venom took control, turning them and launching off the building. _**We punish them and find him, and then you can go home.**_ This _was_ fun, he had to admit; this new body had capabilities that his true host did not. It was amazing. _**We need you.**_

His present host screamed in alarm and panic as they plummeted, flailing rapidly and shooting a web up at the edge of the rooftop. He caught them just in time, swinging them up before they could hit the ground and landing on their feet on the nearest rooftop. Venom analyzed the movement, memorizing it so that he could mimic it in the next jump. “What the hell was that?” he panted, stumbling back in horror. “What the hell was that. Holy shit. Holy shit, what if that was like some weaponized LSD shit- oh my god, I need to call Dr. Banner.” He yanked a cellphone from the collar of his suit with shaking hands.

Venom took his hands and threw the cellphone, watching it fall through the air, satisfied. _**We aren’t done, Peter. Calm down. You aren’t on drugs and we aren’t keeping you for good.**_

Peter yelped, released too slow to snatch his phone out of the air. “No,” he said, taking a hard step back. “No. I’m not doing this. I’m not doing this. I’m going home. I’m not- I’m going home.” He turned, trying to take a step away.

Venom kept him in place with a sigh. _**We will eat you if you don’t be good,**_ he chastised. _**Not long. Punish, then find my human. Then you go home.**_

“I do not _punish_ anyone,” Peter snarled, fighting against the hold. “I web them up and the police _arrest_ them. You want _punishing,_ you’re looking for Frank Castle. _I_ don’t-”

Venom didn’t have time for this. He took over, manifesting fully and swallowing up the smaller host body. He stretched, then turned and took long, hard steps before jumping off the roof. Even like this, he realized as he caught the next building, he was _faster._ Everything was heightened for this host and Venom gained the abilities of his host.

He traced their steps back to the parking lot and found two agents cutting the first one free. One of them was laughing. The other was yelling. “You _lost_ it. Do you have any idea how hard it was to find him here in _New York,_ on vacation? And then you _lost_ it. If Spiderman took it, the entire Avengers are going to have it by now. You are so unbelievably dead.”

Venom grinned, moving forward into the light. _**“You’re already dead,”**_ he informed them, and laughed as they screamed. He leapt up onto the nearest building and then launched himself at one of the ones who wasn’t the Man, the one he’d kill last.

But by the time he was done and had returned to the alley, Eddie was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: we decided to use male pronouns for Venom after doing some research and reading some comics, which typically use male pronouns for him. We completely respect and appreciate Venom's nonbinary status and pronouns in other fics, that's just not what we went with for this one!
> 
> If you’re new to the ClarkeandNik show, welcome! We usually update about once a week, so check back and/or subscribe!
> 
> Comments and feedback are appreciated beyond measure!


	2. Peter: Drugs or a Symbiote? A Learning Curve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter wakes up and faces the after-effects of the bonding process.

Peter woke up, the world pulsing around him, and blinked slowly before sitting up. He was in what looked like an abandoned factory, the windows of which had been long blown out. He felt jittery and cold, and desperately, _desperately_ hungry. “Holy shit,” he murmured, aware distantly that he had cursed more in the last twelve hours than in the last year combined. Harley would be so proud of him. Peter looked around the factory, then down at his glove-clad hands.

They looked normal. He felt normal, albeit covered in sweat and nausea and hunger.

There were no voices.

A bad trip, then. Weaponized LSD and a really, really bad trip.

“Okay,” he said, pushing to his feet. His legs were unsteady, but they held. He searched through the spotty, shadowy memories of the night before. Finding the tube, opening it, hallucinating the voice, and then… and then what? Jumping. Screams. Biting… people? He recoiled, horrified and disgusted.

A _really_ bad trip, he determined as he turned sharply, vomiting what looked like chicken or ham into the corner. He used the wall for support, wiping his mouth with the back of his arm, and shuddered. Wow. Okay. Okay. Hopefully he hadn’t done anything too stupid while he was in the suit. The last thing he needed was _Spiderman Strips Naked_ or _Spiderman Goes Dumpster Diving and Eats Garbage_ to trend on social media.

 _Spiderman Bites Civilians_ didn’t even bear thinking about.

He reached for his phone, then groaned, dragging a hand down his face. He’d thrown it while hallucinating a scary-ass voice. Right.

He turned, pulling his mask down over his face and taking a running jump out of one of the broken windows. He considered his next move as he swung through the early-morning air. It did _nothing_ for his nausea, but it did help the feverish tinge to his skin.

He could go to the tower… but Tony was sure to absolutely _kill_ him for opening the tube the way he had. (In retrospect, yeah, it had been about the stupidest thing he’d done in his life. This included breaking into the lab that had gotten him bitten by a radioactive spider.) He could go see Harry, but Norman wasn’t exactly happy to have Peter around. He could go home, but May still didn’t _know_ that he was Spiderman and she never failed to freak out when he was sick.

“Great,” he muttered, and found himself perching on the wall outside Harry’s bedroom twenty minutes later, tilting to glance inside. Harry was at his desk, running his fingers over a pencil. Studying, probably, and Peter felt a steadying, intense swell of affection in his chest. He rapped his knuckles against the glass, pushing his mask up.

Harry looked around, light eyes cool and distant, clearly lost in whatever he was studying, expression even and calm. Then he focused on Peter and smiled, putting his pencil down. The smile made the color of his eyes change from the color of glaciers to the color of Japanese hot springs, his entire demeanor softening and warming, and he stood and moved quickly to the window, pushing it open. “Hey Pete,” he said, pleased, reaching up to offer a hand. 

Of course, Peter never needed Harry to catch him or help him down. Harry just always offered, like it was perfectly natural for someone to appear outside his bedroom window at all hours of the day and night.

“Hey,” Peter greeted him, taking his hand and letting him help him onto his feet inside. He leaned up to kiss him, then paused and pulled back. “Sorry, I got sick, I’m definitely not kissing you until I brush my teeth.” He offered a grin, shivering a little as the heat in the world shifted to cold.

“It’s probably worth it,” Harry informed him, and took off his sweater, putting it over Peter’s head and settling it around him, the soft fabric warmed by Harry’s body. “Wear this if you’re cold. You look better in it than I do anyway.” He smiled and leaned down, kissing Peter’s forehead with a small frown. “You do feel kind of feverish… are you okay? I didn’t think you _could_ get sick.”

Peter burrowed into the sweater, letting out a breath of relief, then reached out, winding his arms around Harry and snuggling close against him. It was desperately comforting, and Peter found himself moving closer still, burying his face in Harry’s chest. He inhaled the scent of clean cotton and overpriced body wash and let out a sigh of relief and comfort. Harry wrapped his arms around Peter in return, pressing his lips to Peter’s hair and hugging him close.

“I think I got drugged last night,” Peter admitted, listening to the steady, heavy thrum of Harry’s heartbeat against his ear, pressing his cheek to the soft fabric of Harry’s shirt. “I think my body’s burning it off. That’s the only time I get sick, when my metabolism’s pushing stuff out.”

“Drugged?” Harry tensed around him, the heartbeat beneath Peter’s ear picking up in pace. “Drugged how? How did it affect you?”

“No, it’s not how you think. It was my own stupid fault.” Peter shook his head, stepping still closer, fighting the strangest urge to press so close to Harry that he could just dissolve into him. Images of blackness melting into Peter’s own skin flashed through his mind and he recoiled, pulling back quickly. No, not like that. It was just- just leftover memories of the trip.

“Sorry,” he said, taking a step away from Harry, closer to the window. “Sorry. Uh- there was this container with this stuff in it, and I opened it up.” He pulled his gloves off, pressing his hand to his forehead as he felt a new sheen of sweat break over his skin. “I just started hallucinating and shit. And stuff, I mean. I don’t remember half the night, I just remember all this freaky imagery. Reflections and teeth and-” he stopped, swallowing, fighting down the urge to vomit.

It was funny- Peter had on occasion heard people call Harry unfeeling or robotic because he was, most of the time, so calm. Norman had hammered into Harry, for his entire life, lessons on etiquette and calm, pleasantries and the kind of surface-level ease that so many businessmen had, trying to make Harry the perfect replacement for Norman when he died or was forced to step down from Oscorp. To ensure that as long as Harry was by his side and in the public eye as an Osborn, Harry was a perfect representation of what Norman wanted him to be. As a result, Harry often projected a very calm and on occasion cool exterior that made normal people uneasy, people who didn’t have millions of dollars passing through Harry’s capable hands and brilliant mind for business.

But those people had never seen concern and fear and affection tangled in a knot in Harry Osborn's face as he carefully pulled his boyfriend to sit in the chair he’d vacated himself earlier, crouching and brushing Peter’s hair back, searching his face.

“Okay,” he said, curling his fingers around Peter’s. “I’m going to get you something to drink, and you’re going to take a bath or a shower. Then you’re going to lay down and sleep, and when you wake up, if you still don’t feel right, we’ll go talk to Stark.” He reached up, one hand tangled in Peter’s, the other pressing his long, cool fingers against Peter’s face. “Maybe some food.”

 _ **Food.**_

Peter yelped, shooting to his feet and taking a sharp step back. “I have to go,” he said quickly, voice too high, freeing his hand from Harry’s as he backed toward the window. “I have to go right now.”

Harry stood fast, alarmed. “Peter,” he said quickly, reaching out, “It's okay if you get sick. I won’t care, I’ll help you to the bathroom, okay? It’s fine. I don’t mind taking care of you when you’re sick, it’s fine.”

 _ **Food, Peter!**_ The deep voice was insistent. _**He wants to feed us!**_

Threats of eating people, images of limbs breaking under teeth, and _wants to feed us-_ Peter backpedaled sharply, shaking his head hard. “I have to go,” he said frantically. “I have to go, I’m so sorry. I love you, I’ll talk to you later- I broke my phone, but I’ll talk to you later.” He turned sharply, jumping, and swung himself from the nearest building, taking off at a sprint along the rooftops as his stomach rolled and Harry called his name from behind him.

Something was wrong. Something was _very_ wrong.

“Drugs,” he breathed. “Drugs. I’m hallucinating. I didn’t eat people. I’m not schizophrenic. I’m fine. I’m just still high. I just have to get home. I have to get home.”

But not _home,_ home, not where May was, he needed to be somewhere more secure, somewhere where he wouldn’t hallucinate and hurt anyone. He landed on the balcony of the tower and ran inside, thundering down the stairs without pause. There was no one in the lounge anyway. He needed to get to the labs, find Tony or Dr. Banner-

He skidded to a stop, diverting to the kitchen and yanking open the fridge, He was barely aware of what he was doing, definitely wasn’t aware of what he was eating. All he knew was that he had never been so hungry. He was pouring things into his mouth without warming them up, the gnawing, terrible starvation in his stomach easing slightly as he went through plate upon plate, hands unable to stop, biting clear through the rind of an orange to eat it like an apple. He was sweating badly enough to have soaked through his suit to Harry’s sweater now and he let out a whimper, yanking out the shelves of the fridge (the glass shattered against the far wall where it had been thrown) and curling up in a ball inside the cold unit.

Finally, a semblance of relief. 

He shuddered there, still eating a bag of what he was almost sure was frozen tater tots but without the presence of mind to actually examine what he was eating. He hadn’t felt this out of control since he’d first developed his powers, and even then, he had been _him,_ he had been somewhat in control. He’d never felt insane like this.

The fridge door opened, Harley staring down at him. The blonde paused, examining Peter, then crouched. “Hey,” he said, resting a hand on Peter’s hair. “You… you doin’ alright there, sugar? You get a bad edible?” He grinned a little, but it didn’t quite reach his worried eyes, and Peter shuddered, tucking his knees closer against his chest as he ate another tater-tot.

“If- if I did, what would that feel like?” He searched Harley’s face, trembling, vaguely aware that there were tear-tracks on his face and food _exploded_ over the floor behind Harley, pieces and crumbs and packaging scattered like battle debris with the shattered glass across the hardwood floors. “Harley, something’s wrong. Something’s wrong with me.”

“I can see that.” Harley stroked his hair back gently and took away the bag of tater tots, pulling Peter out of the fridge to sit in the floor directly in front of the appliance. He looked him over, shaking his sleeve down to wipe Peter’s face carefully with the fabric. “Talk to me. What happened?” He moved the bag of frozen potatoes away as Peter looked at it. “That’ll kill your stomach, eating frozen shit. Talk to me, Pete.” He rested his hands on Peter’s knees.

“Give it back.” Peter reached for it as his stomach lurched. Harley moved it further away and impatience flared to life. _**“It’s ours!”**_ he shouted, but the voice wasn’t right and he recoiled violently back into the fridge, staring at Harley as he tried to catch his breath. 

Harley stared at him, startled, then stood and pulled Peter to his feet. “It’s okay,” he said, eyebrows furrowing. “We’re gonna to figure it out. Come on.” He hugged Peter into his side and pulled him down the hall. Peter didn’t think to protest, gripping his bag of food and following shakily along.

* * *

“Okay.” Dr. Banner adjusted his glasses again, looking down at the pad of paper. He’d filled half of it with notes as Peter had haltingly told his story. “So when you came back here, did you hear the voice again? When you started eating like that, was it a compulsion or instinct?”

“Instinct.” Peter took in a slow breath, raising another tater tot and biting clean through it. He couldn’t really taste anything, which was sort of good, considering frozen tater tots _smelled_ terrible and couldn’t taste much better. They only even had them in the house because sometimes Clint and Kate liked to ‘slum it.’

They’d have to buy more. This was Peter’s second bag. It was the only way to keep the hunger at bay.

“I didn’t hear it again after I left Harry’s.” He shook his head, eating the other half slowly. “I’m not nauseous now, though,” he added morosely, picking up the next tot.

“Okay.” Banner looked at the pad of paper, chewing his lower lip. “I’ll run some tests. Whatever it is you have, I can and will fix it, Peter. It’s going to be fine.” He gave Peter a reassuring smile.

“Is it a parasite?” Harley leaned forward. “I’ve heard-”

Peter didn’t hear what he’d heard, because the voice woke back up then. _**I am not a parasite,**_ it snarled. _**Should apologize. You are all parasites on your planet and on each other!**_

Peter jerked back, letting the gross frozen nugget fall from his fingers. “Planet?” he echoed, staring at the wall as he ignored Bruce’s concerned query. “What do you mean, _planet?”_

An alien? Like the Chitauri, like Thor? Some weird species of parasitic alien?

And Peter had just opened the containment unit and given it a host.

“I think I should get in the basement,” Peter said, standing sharply. The Hulk Cage, the containment area in the basement for the worst threats, that was the only place that would be safe. It was the only place that made sense. “I think I should get in the basement right now.”

“Pete, it’s fine,” Harley said as Banner stood, watching Peter in concern. Harley reached out. “We’re not putting you in the basement.”

 _ **Basement?**_ There was a pause, and then he was running, something else in control of his hands and arms and legs, flying down the hallway and toward the balcony. Fear screamed through him, fear and claustrophobia and anger, an image of the inside of the container and blood splashing across the outside of it spilling through Peter’s mind, a rough voice he didn’t recognize saying _V, you can’t breathe._

 _ **No cages!**_ Peter leapt off the balcony, not in control in the slightest as his body twisted and shot webbing, swinging through the air.

“Stop!” he shouted, panicked, some distant part of him relieved to at least still be able to speak. “Stop, this isn’t your body, you can’t just move me! Stop, what do you want?!”

 _ **I want**_ **MY HUMAN.** It was a roar, full of rage and frustration, but beneath all that was _grief._ Actual grief, painful and sharp and apparently very fresh, or still just as painful as it had been whenever the loss had occurred. Strong and vicious, carving out a hole in Peter’s chest and leaving him to feel hollow with the sheer force of the pain.

His body came to rest on top of a skyscraper, limbs trembling in a way that had nothing to do with exertion, and Peter sobbed out a breath, holding onto the building as the pain and misery wracked through him. “I’m sorry,” he managed to say when he took in a shaking breath. “I’m sorry, but I’m not- him.” A him? The voice had been male, if that had been the human in question. “What- what happened to him? Did he die?”

 _ **He was gone. They took us from him and hurt him.**_ The blood again, a hand reaching out for the tube, the raspy voice again whispering that _V_ couldn’t breathe. _**We got free, we got you and went back and he was**_ **gone.** The darker voice was miserable, grieving and angry, full of pain. _**They hurt him. He stopped moving. We need to heal him, that’s what we do. He’s sick without us.**_

“Sick?” Peter massaged his chest, trying to diminish the odd, heavy weight there, trying to breathe through the mourning that wasn’t his. “Sick with what?” _Stopped moving_ didn’t sound good, and neither did the fact that he was gone. That felt a lot like disposing of a body.

At the thought, the grief sharpened painfully, as if the voice had heard it. Maybe it had; it could _speak_ to him in his mind, after all. It had somehow understood what ‘the basement’ meant. _**Sick with… with insides.**_ Images flickered across Peter’s mind as if he’d seen them himself, what looked like the inside of a body, flesh dark and malformed. He saw black ooze slipping forward, soothing the area, and when it pulled away, it was clean, pink and red and perfect. _**Sick without us,**_ the voice said softly, anger and pain mixing in its tone. 

“Okay.” Peter lowered himself shakily to sit on the roof, distantly aware that he was still in Harry’s sweater. He raised the sleeve and sniffed it. Cotton and expensive body wash, he confirmed, relaxing a little as he took in slow breaths of the familiar scent. “Okay,” he repeated without lowering his arm. “So he’s gone, but someone at least had to take the body. We could have asked the people last night, but-” images of teeth and blood, images he was becoming all too sure hadn’t been hallucinations. He shuddered, taking in another breath of Harry’s scent. “But they aren’t available,” he finished once his body had relaxed again. “Do you know who sent them? What they wanted you for?”

 _ **Yes.**_ The weight moved away from his chest and Peter could feel something moving _inside_ him. After a moment, black ooze like in the images it had sent flowed along his arm, warm and slick and heavy. _**They wanted us to be theirs, to make them strong. Wanted experiments. It was the LIFE Foundation. We blew up their lab.**_ Pride then, images of a building exploding, of fire and tattooed fingers reaching up toward a black mass and curling around it, agonizing pain fleeing through the memory. _**They were angry. They tracked down my Eddie. Hurt him. Should have killed them when we saw them.**_

“Okay.” Peter rubbed his arm slowly, trying to quell the innate alarm at the fact that he could _feel it inside him_ and more relieved to see it outside. It was almost pretty, in a way, when it was just calm like that. “Okay. So the LIFE Foundation. If you let me go home, we can try to find them. I don’t know if he’s alive,” he warned. “And if he’s not, you can’t just go _killing_ people. Avengers don’t kill people, uh… V? Is that your name?”

 _ **That is what Eddie called me.**_ A new wash of grief, a thousand flickers of the man’s voice laughing or yelling or mumbling _V. **We- I am Venom. And we deserve revenge, Eddie deserves revenge.**_ A pause, then an image of Harry flickered to the forefront of Peter’s mind, Harry’s face warming when he’d seen it was Peter this morning. _**Imagine, little Peter, that you were torn from your Harry. You heard him scream, saw him bleed. He screamed for you. He bled for you. You were trapped and helpless. And they took you away and left him bleeding on the ground and still.**_ Sorrow and rage rose in the same measure, flickers of Harry from Peter’s own memory interspersed with moments of who Peter could only guess was Eddie- flashes of both of them laughing and sleeping and gesticulating, walking and typing on a computer, smiling warmly and frowning in anger. _**He was... so still. You wouldn’t take revenge for yours?**_

Peter sucked in an unsteady breath, trying desperately to push away the images of Harry, to not associate him with this kind of mourning. “It’s…” _different,_ he wanted to say. What he and Harry had was a romantic relationship, it was different. But, romantic or not, the love and grief from this other creature were undeniable. Maybe aliens like Venom didn’t get that difference. “I can’t kill people,” he said finally, swallowing. “I don’t do that. And I need you to _leave my people alone._ They can help you. I can help you. We can find out where his body is if nothing else, or maybe he’s even still alive.” Although it felt sickeningly unlikely. “We can find him. But that’s all we’re doing. No revenge.”

Unhappiness from Venom, and then a voice was playing in Peter’s head, Eddie’s voice, the sound starting to become very familiar. _The deal is, you will only ever be allowed to touch, harm, hurt, possibly, very possibly, eat very, very bad people, but never, never, ever good people._

 _ **Don’t eat good people,**_ Venom informed Peter now, quietly. _**Eddie said no. We protect. Eat bad people only. Your people aren’t bad.**_

“Well, that’s a relief, but I’m not eating anyone,” Peter informed him sharply. “Spiderman doesn’t kill or _eat_ people. It’s bad for the brand and it’s gross and immoral.”

“Peter?” He turned his head quickly in time to see Kate Bishop swinging herself nimbly onto the roof of the building across from him. He was always impressed by that- she was able to get up to almost anywhere he was, but without webs, thrusters, or powers. She just figured out a way to scale any building like a mountain goat, it was incredible. She perched on the roof’s edge, crouched, and studied him carefully. Notably, her bow was slung across her shoulders.

Why? Did they think he was a threat? _Know_ he was a threat?

“Yeah, I found him. Bank on 10th,” she murmured under her breath to the comm device surely in her ear. Of course his hearing caught it anyway. In fact, everything was a little louder than it even had been before, with Venom in him. Kate gave Peter a cautious smile. “Hey, Pete. Whatcha doing?”

“Just… taking in the view.” He cleared his throat, realizing that at some point under Venom’s onslaught of grief, he had started crying for both of them. _Oh my god, not in front of Kate,_ he thought, mortified, and scrubbed his cheeks with his sleeve. Although, he’d like to see her be forcibly bonded to an alien and feel that much mourning and trauma in a ten minute span without doing the same thing.

“Okay,” Kate agreed personably, and it was funny how much of Clint Barton he could see in her approach to this. She took after her mentor so much in so many ways. “It’s a nice view, I’m not gonna lie. I think Avengers Tower is a nicer one, though. A little higher up. You can see Central Park.”

“I’m not crazy, Kate.” Peter snorted, taking in a breath, then jumping across to land beside her. Kate didn’t reach out to steady him. She always just trusted he was good. 

“Never said you were. Interesting that you know that, though.” She winked at him, not rising from her crouch. “You want to go home with me? Tony and Harley are really worried about you. Everyone is. We’ve been trying to call you-”

“We broke my phone,” Peter muttered, and Kate paused a moment, then nodded.

“Okay,” she agreed lightly, apparently overlooking the pronoun in the face of her objective. “But let’s go home and get you a new one. Jarvis and Tony can make you a new one. Yeah?”

Peter listened, but he didn’t hear any response from Venom and his body seemed under his own control, so he nodded. Kate wound an arm around his neck and he lifted her automatically, aiming a web shooter and swinging them back up through the city.

How in the hell was he going to explain this to the team?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who's accompanying us on this fic so far! 
> 
> If you're interested, check out our smutty little one-shot of Veddie, Understandings Between Us. It just went up and we had SO much fun writing it.
> 
> Your comments and feedback are so, so appreciated! We're always up for adding more of what you liked, so let us know if there's anything you want to see more of or a direction you'd like to see! Sometimes comments influence the work as we edit back through it!


	3. Peter: Chocolate and Potatoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers meet Venom and try to make a plan moving forward.

It was practically an Assemble when he landed on the balcony with Kate. Natasha looked incredibly tense, easing slightly when he set Kate down. Clint gave a relieved smile to Kate as well, his shoulders relaxing as he let out a breath, then continued working on his bow, pretending to adjust something as he listened to Bruce, who had his notepad out and was checking Peter over, clearly trying to analyze further details on what had went wrong. Harley was practically vibrating with anger and confusion, dark eyes worried and not leaving Peter for very long.

And Tony, who was supposed to be up in Canada with Steve and Bucky hunting down Hydra sects, was there. He was stepping out of his suit, looking exhausted and rigid, crossing to them quickly. “Hey, kid. Hey, you all right?” He turned him without waiting for an answer. “No injuries, hey, look at that. Bruce, get this kid down to the lab and start doing some scans. Now. If he has a parasite, we need to remove it. If he’s on drugs or poisoned, we need an antidote. Stat.” He left his hand, warm and comforting, on the back of Peter’s neck.

Peter cleared his throat. “It’s… it’s an alien.”

 _ **Not a parasite,**_ Venom agreed, pleased at the distinction. He hated the word _parasite,_ Peter noted.

“A what?” Harley stared at him. 

“An alien…” Bruce looked down at his paper, chewing on the end of his pen and trying to fit this new knowledge in. “Oh… yes, okay, I see. I see, that might… so it’s a parasitic-“

 _ **No! Apologize!**_ Aggression and a tiny hint of hurt welled up.

“-species and it’s attached to you?” Bruce got up. “We can do some scans, I’ve got some equipment. Where has it housed itself?”

 _ **No scans.**_ Venom jerked Peter back slightly, away from all of them and closer to the balcony. A flash of noise and vibration and screaming fluttered through Peter’s mind. _**Scans hurt us.**_ The same image came back, but he could hear Eddie’s voice screaming along now too.

“No scans,” Peter said sharply as Tony caught him, keeping him from getting too close to the railing. “They’ll- hurt us. Something about them hurts. And he doesn’t like the phrase parasite, it pisses him off-“

“Him. You have a male alien.” Natasha raised an eyebrow at him, and Peter noted somewhere in his wild mind that her weight had shifted very slightly closer, more of a position to launch herself if need be. Against him? Or toward Kate? He couldn’t tell. Venom shifted inside Peter, spreading out a little and moving just beneath Peter’s skin.

“His name is Venom.”

“Oh yeah, that sounds like a good guy.” Tony’s voice was sarcastic and scathing the way it always was when he was actually bothered or scared.

 _He might eat people,_ Peter agreed, but decided not to vocalize that in the interests of keeping all of them, Avengers and Venom both, de-escalated.

“He had a host,” Peter said instead. “They were…” _happy?_ “Not a threat.” _Although they definitely ate people…_ _**Bad people,**_ Venom protested. “And then they got attacked. Some humans separated them and put Venom in a container. They… might have killed Eddie. We don’t know.”

“Eddie. His host was named Eddie?” Kate’s brow furrowed.

“Eddie Brock,” Peter supplied when Venom mumbled the last name to him.

“Oh, Jesus Christ of course it was Eddie goddamn Brock.” Tony pulled away to massage his forehead and Kate blinked at him, then laughed. Venom growled, low and deep. 

“You’re acquainted?” Kate asked.

“He was a reporter,” Nat murmured. “In New York, then San Francisco. He got pretty popular there for a while. I think he still is.”

“Yeah, and he was a constant pain in the ass,” Tony muttered. “You should have _seen_ this guy. He camped outside of my house in Malibu for like a week, raging about my weapons and the damage we were doing- I mean, he was right, apparently, but he didn’t have to be so goddamn obnoxious about it. Everywhere I went, _there_ was Eddie Brock. The guy never shut up. We only got him to leave by bringing attention to some big pharmaceutical emergency in New York for him to report on instead.”

Love, warm and heavy and mingled with a heavy dose of grief in the now-familiar emotions of the alien in him. _**Eddie was smart and brave,**_ Venom told Peter. _**Loved his job. He wrote and changed lives. He was good.**_

“Okay, yeah. Venom was like _really_ attached to him, apparently.” Peter rubbed at his chest and Tony caught the motion. 

“How big is it? Where is it in you?”

“I think in my chest right now,” Peter admitted. “But he moves around. He’s not solid, so he can kind of just move wherever. Look- if Eddie’s alive, Venom would definitely leave me alone. If not, he needs to know. Either way, that’s all he wants.”

“And what happens if Brock is dead?” Tony’s arm tightened around Peter. Venom quieted, tightening in Peter’s stomach area and settling heavily there. “You’re not his _host,_ Peter. He’s not staying _in you.”_

“I don’t want him to,” Peter assured him quickly. “We’ll figure it out. We just need to find whatever is left of him and know.”

“I don’t like the ‘we’ thing he’s doing,” Kate muttered, crossing to her tiny subset of family. Natasha caught her ponytail, running her fingers along it briefly in the motion Peter had become quickly accustomed to. He couldn’t ever tell if it was a greeting or a way to self-soothe. Clint reached out, checking her fingers briefly as he always did, then squeezed her hand with a smile. Kate had explained once that he checked to see if she’d had to fire an arrow.

“There are two of them in there,” Natasha rationalized, examining Peter. “Do we have any details on who attacked them?”

“The LIFE Foundation?”

“Jesus _Christ,”_ Tony muttered under his breath, looking up at the sky. Peter continued as Harley, who had been quiet, grinned a little and held out a glass of what smelled like bourbon.

“They separated them and drove Venom away. I thought the guy was… I don’t know. He had a kidnapper van and a gun, he was being sketchy, so I webbed him up. In the tube, Venom _looked_ like some kind of… biotech. So I opened it, and-“

“ _Jesus Christ,”_ Tony snapped more aggressively, taking the bourbon. “You’re too young to drink,” he growled at Harley before downing the alcohol. He focused on Peter again, furious. “You didn’t know what that was and you just _opened it._ What if it had been poison, or some kind of explosive, or, just a guess here, a _parasitic invasive species that could take over your body and hurt you?_ You’re smarter than that, Peter!”

Peter studied his feet, taking in a small breath. “I know,” he agreed quietly, unable to keep his voice from being small. “It was dumb. Um. Anyway. Venom attached and we went back to the park. Well, he took us back to the park. Everything is kind of fuzzy then.” He hesitated. “I’m pretty sure he killed them. And then he tried to find Eddie, but the alley was empty.”

“Wait.” Nat leaned forward. “Killed them _how?_ Using you? Did anyone see? Where are the bodies?”

“I don’t know,” Peter admitted. “It was dark and warm and I couldn’t really move or see much-“

“Peter, if you killed people, we need to handle this and do damage control,” Natasha said sharply, maintaining eye contact. Peter stared at her.

“I don’t know!” He protested wildly. “I don’t know what happened, it was different than when he just makes me move!”

 _ **You humans.**_ Venom spread, and Peter’s mouth moved, something _like_ his voice coming out of his mouth, but definitely inhuman, like when he’d yelled at Harley earlier. _**“Bad people were not killed as Peter. Killed as Venom. No one sees Peter.”**_ Venom rolled Peter’s eyes for him. _**“It is not my first time in a host.”**_

Harley cleared his throat. “And that’s the weird-ass shit I told you his voice did,” he said into the silence that briefly fell. He knocked back a glass of bourbon, eyes tight. “We talkin’ to this Venom?”

 _ **“Yes.”**_ Venom walked Peter’s body to the pantry and grabbed a bag of potato chips, opening it and starting to eat.

“Tony. It’s going to be fine.” Nat had a hand on his chest, stopping him from entering the lounge. “Stop, it’s going to be fine. We need to take this slow.” She turned back to Venom and Peter and entered the lounge, hopping up onto the counter beside them and putting her foot on the bar to keep them somewhat contained.

“Damage control,” she echoed herself in an easygoing tone, dark eyes assessing Peter’s shape. “What did you look like when you killed them? No one can associate the two of you.”

Venom made Peter smile, tilting his head, and Peter caught a thought- Nat would make a fascinating host. But then he continued. _**“We killed them as Venom. Big, black. Lots of teeth. White eyes. Claws.”**_ Peter and Venom shrugged. _**“Many humans cry and urinate when we come out.”**_

“Come out.” It wasn’t a request, her elbow resting casually on her knee. Peter was vaguely aware that the others were filing into the lounge to look and watch, but he was more focused on Venom, who was considering, and then he was focused on the way he could feel Venom _growing,_ spreading, swallowing up his form to rise and take massive form in their tiny lounge kitchen.

He could see their reflection in the windows- they _were_ terrifying. Giant opalescent eyes, a shimmering, _huge_ body that had to be well over seven feet, muscles rolling over nearly every inch of their form. Teeth were razor-sharp and long, splitting across his face in a giant, macabre grin. Their fingers ended in long, sharp claws.

 _Oh my god._ Peter tried sharply to move away from Nat, but he clearly didn’t have control here. Venom instead watched her in interest, staying still for a moment as the other Avengers behind them stayed silent.

Nat studied him for a long moment, tilting her head. She reached up, brushing her fingertips along one of their muscles. “Strange texture,” she mused. “You’re bulletproof, I assume?”

 _ **“Bullets, knives, debris. I am a shield.”**_ Venom watched her, and Peter noted that again, there was no indication of violence, only interest and a little sting of sadness.

Only Eddie had ever touched Venom. Everyone else was too afraid.

“You look kind of like Spiderman on steroids,” Kate volunteered, tone joking but looking incredibly concerned for her mentor. Behind her, Clint looked like he was fighting to stay where he was. “Rolled in an oil slick.”

 _ **“Eddie said that.”**_ Venom dumped the rest of the chips in his mouth, then looked around. _**“Chocolate? We need chocolate and potatoes.”**_

“Why?” Bruce’s voice, interested.

Venom shook his head. _**“Keeps us healthy.”**_

Natasha studied him, then nodded. “Aside from the eyes, there’s no reason anyone would associate you with Spiderman. Peter should be safe from that.” She let her leg drop and hopped down, opening up a cabinet. She pulled out the Jumbo bag of chocolate chips they kept for Thor and tossed them to Venom.

“Did everyone here just forget that I have a heart condition?” Tony barked. “No, don’t give it chocolate like it’s normal. Give the kid back, right now. It’s his body, not yours.” He pushed past Bruce, crossing to the kitchen. Nat caught him with a hand on his chest, pressing her lips in a line, and Tony ignored her to glare up at Venom. “We will look for Brock, but not if you’re taking control of his body.”

Venom watched him for a moment, then sank back into Peter, the warmth and closeness and darkness fading away. Venom kept control though, opening the bag of chocolate and pouring some into Peter’s mouth. _**“Is Peter your offspring?”**_ He eyed Tony. _**“Eddie didn’t like you. Said you were a pompous prick.”**_

“Well, I didn’t like Eddie, either,” Tony informed him shortly. “Peter’s my kid. It’s more goddamn important than my offspring. Anyone can fuck a baby into someone. Now, I swear to god, if you don’t let him go, we’ll put you through every range of scans imaginable.”

Venom made Peter smile, chewing. _**“It makes our humans scream too,”**_ he informed him, then let go, sinking fully into Peter’s chest. _**Don’t stop eating chocolate,**_ Venom told him, winding around his ribs, and Peter let out a breath, catching his balance with the counter. Tony caught him and pulled him into his side, hugging him tightly for a minute.

“Brock better be alive,” he muttered, then, “Natasha, Clint, I want you with me looking for LIFE and Brock. Bruce, go ahead and do notes and just keep an ear out. Kate and Harley, stick with Peter, make sure the thing doesn’t kidnap him again.” He pulled out his phone as he released Peter, crossing toward the stairs, and Peter caught, “Hey, Steve,” slightly unsteady and miserable as he vanished down the lounge’s stairs. “We got him. It’s not good. You guys need to come home.” 

Natasha, Clint, and Bruce vanished to their respective locations and Peter ate a handful of chocolate chips slowly, glancing at Harley and Kate, who were eyeing him.

“Okay. Okay. They’re doing Senior Avengers stuff, so we’re going to just relax.” Kate caught Peter’s arm, directing him to sit on the couch. She stole a chip, Venom growled, and she smacked the back of his head. “ _Share,”_ she snapped, as if she was reprimanding a chihuahua rather than a gigantic, monstrous alien. She took another chip and settled beside him. “Harley, come play Mario with us.”

Harley settled beside Peter on his other side and held out his phone. “You might want to call your boy toy,” he said. “He’s been botherin’ me.”

 _Oh my god, Harry._ Peter took the phone quickly, dialing the number he’d memorized over a decade ago and raising the phone to his ear.

“I like that he didn’t correct me on boytoy,” Harley said with a grin over Peter’s head at Kate. “He really must have an alien in his head.”

“Harley?” Harry’s tense voice as the line picked up. “Did you find Peter?”

“Hey, Hare. It’s me.” Peter ran a hand through his hair, relaxing a little at the sound of his boyfriend’s voice.

“Hey.” It was more a breath than anything. “Hey, Pete. It’s good to hear you. Are you okay?” Peter vaguely heard voices in the background, distant enough that Harry must have moved away. “Harley said you freaked out on him too.”

“Yeah, I have an alien para- uh. I have an alien attached to me, apparently. I’m okay, I don’t think he’s hurting me.” Peter rubbed his arms. “Were you in a meeting? I can let you go.”

“Peter, I literally couldn’t care less about the damn meeting- did you just say an _alien attached to you?”_ There was alarm there. “Can I come talk to you in person?”

“Um.” Peter hesitated. “Venom, you swear you won’t hurt him?”

 _ **Just because I am scary and eat bad people doesn’t mean I would hurt the people you love, host.**_ Venom was affronted. _**I did not eat him this morning did I? I was hungry then. I have chocolate now.**_

“Are you talking to your alien?” More alarm in Harry’s voice. “His name is _Venom?”_

_**Harry is also a stupid name. That is an adjective.** _

“No, that’s _hairy,”_ Peter informed him, then focused on Harry. “Yeah, you can come. We’re at the tower. But I don’t want you to get in trouble with your dad, Hare. I don’t think I’m in any real danger here. He’s just… constantly hungry and has insane mood swings.” He paused, looked at Kate. “Oh my god, chocolate and mood swings, is this what you feel like-“

“I will _murder you,”_ she informed him acidly. “And then subject you to an hour-long rant on feminism from MJ. Try me, Parker.”

“ _Bro.”_ Harley let his head fall back against the couch. “It’s a good thing you’re gay because you _can’t_ talk to girls. All my knowledge is so useless.”

“ _I_ personally am glad you’re gay,” Harry informed Peter, laughing a little. “I’ll be there when I can. You’re okay for now? You’re not in pain or anything?”

“No,” Peter assured him. “If you want to bring chocolate, though, that would be cool. We’re going to run out here.”

“Chocolate.” Harry considered. “A specific kind?”

“He’ll buy you some expensive shit that your alien can’t even eat,” Harley snickered.

 _ **All chocolate is good,**_ Venom piped up. _**But nothing in the chocolate. No peanut butter or nuts, just chocolate.**_

“Just really plain, basic chocolate.” Peter shook his head, taking the remote that Kate handed him. “Thanks, Hare. Sorry about this morning. I didn’t know what was happening.”

“It’s okay.” Harry let out a breath. “As long as you’re okay, everything else is fine. I’ll see you soon, okay? I’ll get away as soon as I can. Have fun with Harley and Kate and I’ll bring you chocolate.”

“Okay. I love you.” Peter hung up, relaxing a little as his boyfriend murmured the same thing back. He then started up the game, spending the hour trying to get used to the growling commentary in his head as he and his friends played.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and feedback are life-juice.


	4. Peter: Fight or Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter's 'dads' meet Venom together and consider a plan of action moving forward.

“No,” Harry said with a helpless laugh, shaking his head quickly. His shirt was unbuttoned slightly, tie tossed off into the corner, his jacket off, feet just in socks. He leaned into Peter. “I never dated a _supermodel. The models I dated weren’t that famous and literally the only thing in common was we both liked stupidly-expensive wine.” He grinned down at Peter, hugging him into his side. “This is much better. And Peter’s actually a lot prettier, so win-win.”_

__

Peter grinned up at him, momentarily dazed, wishing against reason that he had his camera right now, that he had a way to immortalize this moment. How was it even possible to be that beautiful? He was glad that Kate had bullied him into taking a shower (thank God Venom had been silent the entire time, and Peter had kept his eyes on the ceiling), glad that he was clean and able to be cuddled up against Harry’s side like this. 

__

“You dated tons of supermodels,” he disagreed. “We know, because _all_ the paparazzi did page-long biographies on everything they did prior to dating you.” He leaned in, kissing the collarbone that was revealed by his shirt gaping open like that. 

__

“God, I hate _In Touch Magazine,”_ Harry grumbled.

__

“The pretty thing is a complete lie, but I appreciate the effort _behind_ the lie,” Peter continued with a grin.

__

“Yeah, Peter’s definitely not hot,” Kate agreed, aiming an arrow up at the target Peter had webbed up for her in the corner of the room. “Isran, that one dude you were with last year? _Jesus,_ that man was carved from marble.”

__

“Yes, thank you, Kate.” Peter snorted, watching the arrow hit its mark.

__

Harry smiled and kissed Peter’s ear. “He was dumb as a box of nails. It was terrible. I’ll stick with my gorgeous nerdy superhero, thank you.” His fingers smoothed along Peter’s side.

__

“If only Kate thought the same thing,” Harley said with a put-upon sigh. “But _this_ gorgeous nerd, obviously.”

__

“Yeah, you wish.” She snorted. “Besides, we’d kill each other in two minutes flat.”

__

“And it would be so hot.” Harley grinned at her.

__

“Mr. Parker, Captain Rogers and Sergeant Barnes have returned and are coming to visit you,” Jarvis said helpfully, and Harley stood.

__

“God, Brooklyn’s back. That’s my cue to make myself scarce. Kate, you wanna go make out somewhere?”

__

“Again, you wish.” She grinned up at him. Peter looked around at Harley in surprise.

__

“Why don’t you want to see them?”

__

“Bucky’s cool.” Harley shrugged. “Steve’s just…” he paused, then pressed a hand over his heart. “Aw man, I just had the _best_ joke about sticks up the ass but you’re too pure and innocent for it, Pete. I’ll tell Clint and Kate. C’mon, girl, let’s go bother somebody, they’re going to be all irritating for a bit. Call us if you need us?” He ruffled Peter’s hair gently, belying the casual tone. Harley didn’t really do emotional stuff- he’d pretend he couldn’t care less about things, but you had to pay attention to what he actually did.

__

Peter smiled up at him. “Yeah, of course. Come grab me if you get any news about the LIFE people.”

__

“Will do.” Kate got up, slinging her bow across her shoulders. “Venom, be good,” she added as she led Harley down the stairs.

__

_**“Always good,”**_ Venom called back, using Peter’s voice, and Harry shook his head with a small grimace.

__

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to that.” He wound his fingers through Peter’s. “You want me to give you and them some space when they get up here? Your father figures are kind of a lot when they’re worried about you.” He laughed. “I can go make you a pizza. You’re always hungry anyway and you said he makes it worse, right?”

__

_**Pizza.**_ Venom almost drooled and Peter grimaced, burying his face in Harry’s neck.

__

“I don’t know if it’s this bad with all the hosts or if it’s because I already had such a high metabolism and then he got added on top of it. I literally feel like I haven’t eaten in two days.” Which was utterly insane, because packaging and crumbs littered the entire room. Peter was beyond shocked that he hadn’t thrown up yet. “And they’re not… my _father_ figures,” he added, somewhat lamely.

__

Harry laughed. “Sure,” he agreed warmly, turning his head to press his lips to Peter’s neck and collarbone, hugging him into his side a little. “Not even slightly like you have three dads. It’s so funny watching them with you. I’ll make you a pizza. With extra pepperonis.” His lips brushed Peter’s jaw. “Mushrooms?”

__

Peter made a small noise, relaxing into him. “That sounds amazing,” he agreed, and watched with a smile as Harry pulled away and headed for the staircase as the elevator dinged to signal that the three men were here.

__

Tony had never entirely warmed up to Harry, mostly because Harry got quiet and nervous when Tony was around and Tony didn’t trust anyone who was too quiet. So Tony eyed Peter’s boyfriend instead of greeting him when they passed each other on the stairs, then stepped up into the lounge and glanced Peter over, ignoring Harry’s greeting entirely.

__

“Hey, kid,” he greeted Peter instead, Steve appearing behind him. 

__

“Hey,” Peter said, waving. “Hey, Steve.”

__

“Hey there, kiddo.” He smiled, eyes tight. “How’re you feeling?”

__

“It’s not so bad as long as I’m eating. They had to crank the air up because everything was too hot.” Peter offered a tiny smile, Venom grumbling something about an ‘adjustment period’ in his mind, shifting around his ribcage. There was a familiar metal-on-metal tap as Bucky caught the door with his left hand and stepped into the room behind the other two Avengers.

__

Peter had no warning before Venom flipped them up and over the couch with a yell that bounced inside Peter’s mind, flowing over Peter’s arms and legs. He wasn’t fully manifested, but it was close. _**Threat,**_ he hissed. 

__

“Venom, what the hell?!” Peter yelped it and Bucky took a sharp step forward, eyes tracking their movements, metal fingers curling into a fist.

__

“Peter, are you okay?” he asked, eyes locking on the blackness over Peter’s limbs. “Is he hurting you?”

__

“No- Venom, what is happening right now?!” Peter tried to stand on his own, shaking his arms. “Stop.”

__

_**Threat,**_ Venom snapped, the blackness over Peter’s hands became claws. _**He’s a threat!**_ He lunged forward, snarling and swiping at Bucky. Steve’s hand reached back for his shield instinctively, then faltered, eyes finding Peter’s face as Bucky ducked out of the way.

__

“ _Do not.”_ Tony grabbed Steve’s arm, moving him back rapidly, and Bucky’s left hand curled into a fist, moving into a position to parry any incoming hits.

__

“Antony, is it _hurting_ him?” he asked again sharply, not quite able to dodge the next hit and grabbing Peter to flip him over his shoulder and back onto the couch cushions hard.

__

“Venom, stop,” Peter tried frantically, trying violently to clench down on his muscles, to lock himself stiff as a board. His arm whipped out, knocking Bucky into Steve, and his panic skyrocketed. “Venom, _stop!_ He’s not a threat!”

__

The symbiote snarled, sharp black tendrils snapping out to hit the soldier, and Steve shoved Bucky behind him quickly, breathing hard. “Stop,” he said quickly, keeping himself between Peter and Bucky as Tony hauled the soldier back to his feet. “Let’s calm down. Peter, what’s happening? Tony said it talks to you.”

__

“He thinks there’s a threat.” Peter swallowed, heart pounding in his throat, keeping his voice locked and even in a way he couldn’t keep his body. “Venom, they’re _fine,_ Bucky’s _fine,_ they’re Avengers, they aren’t going to hurt us, _do not_ hurt _them._ Please.”

__

“Tony, it’s scaring him,” Bucky growled, and Tony caught his arm, pulling him back a small step.

__

“We can’t remove it without hurting Peter.”

__

Venom stopped, confusion flickering through the bond, and Peter could almost _feel_ Venom rifling through his mind, finding images of Bucky laughing, calm and happy, ruffling Peter’s hair and helping him with things. Safe and warm and comfortable.

__

_**Oh.**_ Venom hesitated, then slowly sank back into Peter’s skin, slight embarrassment flooding through him. _**Not threat.**_

__

“Okay.” Steve’s hand on Bucky’s shoulder relaxed very slightly, knuckles white. “Okay, so that’s a good thing that it went back?”

__

“Yeah.” Peter let out a breath, feeling shaky in the wake of the violence. “He thought Bucky was dangerous.”

__

There was a beat of silence, and then Tony started laughing, clapping Bucky’s shoulder. The soldier looked annoyed by this and rolled his eyes at Tony, massaging the back of his head where he’d hit the wall. “Shut up,” he muttered, moving away and crossing to Peter. 

__

_**You have three fathers?**_ Venom was confused. _**You only need one for procreation.**_

__

“It’s not like that,” Peter muttered to him.

__

“Are you okay?” Bucky asked, catching Peter’s cheeks in his hands and looking him over. “Tony, _shut up.”_

__

“I’m trying,” Tony chuckled, leaning back against the wall merrily for support. It wasn’t really his fault. Tony utilized humor to divert tension, laughing instead of actually venting his feelings in any concrete way.

__

“I’m fine,” Peter assured Bucky, catching his forearms. “He doesn’t hurt me, he just takes over sometimes.”

__

Steve was starting to relax, picking up some of the picture frames that had fallen from the wall and placing them back where they belonged. “I mean, you _are_ dangerous,” he acquiesced with a laugh. “Especially when it comes to aliens invading our kid.” He settled on the couch beside Peter, looking up at him. “There’s no pain? You’re sure?”

__

Venom sighed impatiently, a little petulance bleeding through. _**I would not hurt you. Learned from Eddie, healed him and don’t want to hurt my host.**_

__

“I appreciate that,” Peter informed him, chuckling, then focused on Steve with a smile. “No pain, I’m sure. I actually think he might be able to heal me if I was to get hurt. Which, I heal anyway, but still.”

__

“Good. He _should_ heal you. As long as he was attacking for your protection, it’s fine.” Bucky released Peter, searching him over for another minute before taking a step back and examining the trash littered across the lounge. “Were you guys having a party?”

__

“No.” Peter sighed, sitting beside Steve. “It’s all me. I haven’t stopped eating all day.”

__

“You eat all the time anyway.” Steve frowned at him. “You’re saying you eat _more_ now? Why? Energy for the demon-alien?”

__

_**Rude.**_ It was almost a pout. _**Not a demon. He might be.**_ Venom eyed Bucky again, quietly perturbed by how well the soldier had avoided the majority of his attacks. 

__

“Why don’t you like Bucky?” Peter laughed, the sound still slightly unsteady as he glanced over at him. Bucky was picking up trash, his hair tied back into the little messy bun on top of his head that he did when he was too busy and distracted to actually do anything decent with it. He was even in a hoodie, the metal arm partially obscured, although both sleeves were pushed up to reveal his forearms, so the metal _was_ visible. He looked comfortable and calm, albeit a bit tense still, and when Bucky was comfortable, he looked almost painfully casual and safe.

__

It made Peter wonder what he would have been like if he’d never been caught by Hydra, if he could have been purely Bucky Barnes rather than mostly Bucky Barnes.

__

_**Dangerous.**_ Peter could see the way Venom's attention was caught by Bucky’s movements, by his arm, the way he walked, highlighting the predatory moments rather than the soft ones. _**Very dangerous. Wouldn't let my Eddie near him.**_

__

Steve smiled fondly at Bucky. “It’s because you still have a murder walk,” he said warmly. “It’s pretty attractive, but I can see why an alien would be nervous. He should be nervous.”

__

Bucky paused. “I don’t have… a _murder_ walk.”

__

“You walk like you’re getting ready to choke someone out,” Tony disagreed, leaning over to kiss Bucky’s metal-covered shoulder. “You stand like you’re thinking of how to do maximum damage to everyone in the room in the most efficient way.”

__

“It’s important to know,” Bucky muttered, glancing down at him with a grudging smile, and Tony grinned up at him.

__

“Sure it is,” he agreed cheerfully. “We’re under _constant_ threat in Avengers Tower. Not safe at all.” He pulled a Coke out of his pocket and tossed it to Peter, who caught it.

__

“Thanks,” he said, leaning against Steve as he opened it.

__

Steve hugged him into his side for a moment. “Are you okay?” He asked quietly. “Not physically, everything else. Tony told us about it, it sounds like a hell of an ordeal. It wasn’t your fault, Pete.” He squeezed him. “Are you okay? He said Harley and Kate and Harry were keeping you company, so that’s good.”

__

“Yeah. They’re not freaked out about it, so that’s cool.” He fiddled with the cap of the Coke. “I don’t think Kate knows how to be afraid and Harley’s too dumb to stay away from danger, though, so I don’t know what that actually means.”

__

“You’re right about that,” Tony muttered darkly, crossing to the bar to pour himself a drink.

__

Steve laughed. “Harley is just like Bucky,” he said affectionately. “And Harry’s too in love with you to really care, so there’s that. Good. I’m glad.” He ruffled Peter’s hair gently. “So this thing is looking for his original host. Eddie Brock, right? I’ve watched some of his videos.”

__

_**Videos.**_ Venom was interested, vague memories of Eddie’s career before their bonding surfacing in his mind.

__

“Videos?” Peter echoed for Venom and for his own knowledge.

__

“Tony showed them to us, back when we woke up.” Steve frowned a little. “Yeah, _The Eddie Brock Show._ It was a series, he did journalism videos about different companies and things like that. They were good.” He looked up at Bucky. “D’you remember those, Buck? We laughed our asses off about the one about Tony. He hasn’t made one in a long time.”

__

“He swapped to print,” Tony volunteered, nursing his drink.

__

_**Eddie did videos.**_ Venom’s tone was edged with a sharply bittersweet longing and Peter picked up the phone Harry had left behind, opening Youtube and typing the name into the search bar. He tapped on the first result, turning the phone to study the man who took up the screen.

__

It was funny- he didn’t look _exactly_ like Venom’s recollection of him. Of course, the alien saw things in a slightly sharper and crisper way, colors more vivid even than Peter was able to see them. He had a vague notion that the alien might even be able to see UV, but none of that mattered in the long-term. Maybe Eddie Brock looked different just because they had been joined, and no one ever saw themselves as everyone else did. Or maybe it was because Venom’s affection had colored his memories of him.

__

Eddie was focusing on the camera, wearing a leather jacket over a Henley, woven bracelets clustered on his wrists under the cuffs of the coat. He was arguing with a tall, tan man, barking something about pharmaceutical testing and people who had died, open court cases about those wrongful deaths. Peter scrolled down enough to see the title of the video- _Eddie Brock Confronts LIFE Foundation Director._ The comments ranged from vague thirst over how he looked in the jacket, criticising Eddie’s voice, and pointing out that no one had believed Brock for ‘bringing up the truth.’ Apparently he had gotten fired for this interview, and then LIFE had exploded and their shady dealings had been exposed nearly six months later. Peter scrolled back up, studying Brock’s face.

__

“Huh,” he said. “That’s him, Venom?”

__

_**That’s him.**_ Affection and grief and longing threaded through them, biting at Peter’s chest like an almost physical pain. _**Should eat those people. Eddie has the best voice. Miss that jacket. Miss Eddie.**_ Venom wound around Peter’s arm, watching the video intently. Anger further soured the emotions rumbling through them. **Hate _that guy._**

__

“God, Carlton Drake had the most annoying face,” Tony muttered from across the room, shaking his head as he took a drink. “I hated that guy. What a terrible shame he blew up.”

__

“Tony.” Steve snorted as Bucky cough-laughed into his drink. “The kid.”

__

“What? It’s not like _I_ blew him up.” Tony rolled his eyes.

__

**We _blew him up,_** Venom said in savage satisfaction. _**Drake and his symbiote stabbed Eddie. We fixed it.**_ A flash of screaming, fire, falling.

__

“Oh, damn,” Peter said in surprise. “Venom and Eddie killed him.”

__

Tony paused, then shook his head. “As an Avenger responsible for fighting crime? I didn’t hear that,” he said, stirring a drink. He carried it over to Peter, holding it out, and Peter stared at him for a moment before looking down and realizing that Tony had made him a chocolate milk. He fought down a smile, taking it in place of the untouched Coke, and Tony went back to sit at the bar beside Bucky. “Nat is making some progress, she thinks LIFE has a research facility outside of the city, closer to New Jersey.”

__

“I’ll go help her,” Bucky murmured, brushing his lips briefly across Tony’s hair and winking at Steve before heading downstairs. Peter smiled into his chocolate milk, taking a drink as Venom thrilled in his mind, chocolate milk one of his favorite things.

__

No, they weren’t his _fathers,_ per se… but he did really love the little family unit they’d made anyway.

__

Steve started chuckling again. “He doesn’t think he has a murder walk,” he managed. “Ridiculous. He’s so cute. Hello, Harry.” He smiled as Harry stepped into the room, holding a pizza in his hands. “How are you?”

__

“Fine, thank you.” Harry set the pizza on the table in front of Peter and Venom twirled in Peter’s chest excitedly, one tendril reaching out to hit the next video on Peter’s phone so Eddie’s voice was filling the air again. “How are you, Captain Rogers?”

__

“Fine.” Steve grinned at Tony. “Good to see you.”

__

“Hello, Mr. Stark.” Harry gave Tony a small smile, very obviously, to Peter anyway, nervous. You could tell from the absolute stillness and how straight his posture was. Harry was well aware that Tony didn’t like him- mostly because Tony never bothered to hide whatever he was thinking or feeling at any given moment. “How are things going, sir?”

__

“Mmhm.” Tony eyed him. “They’re fine. How is Oscorp?”

__

“Very well, sir, thank you. We just signed contracts for a new building and gained a few new clients.” Harry sat on the couch, farther away from Peter than he normally would. Most of the time, Harry’s legs and/or arms were pressed against Peter’s, but there was a full foot between them now. Peter could feel Steve laughing on his other side. “We have meetings all day tomorrow to go over them.”

__

“Hare.” Peter laughed a little, reaching out and snagging his pocket. “Come here.”

__

Harry smiled a little and sat closer, his ankle brushing Peter’s as Steve stole a piece of pizza and Venom watched in interest. “So we’re getting closer to finding Mr. Brock. Once we do, Venom will go back and everything will go back to normal?”

__

“If he’s alive, Venom would go back to him happily,” Peter agreed. “I… don’t know what happens if not.”

__

“Nat is going to take him,” Tony said, studying the whiskey in his glass.

__

“You said what?” Steve looked up, startled. “ _Why?”_

__

_**The redhead?**_ Venom considered this. There was the brief concept there that she would be a good host, but there was no real interest behind the concept. He didn’t want her. His focus went back to the video playing, of Eddie bawling out someone for not testing some chemical before releasing it to the public. He curled around the wrist holding the phone, almost painfully tightly. _**Just want Eddie.**_

__

“Bruce said that Peter wouldn’t be able to sustain Venom long-term.” Tony took a drink, shaking his head. “The food intake, for one, and the mood swings, for another. Peter’s still going to school and Spiderman is a very light superhero, his reputation can’t afford to be…” He gestured to Peter, blackness swirling overtop his hand as they ate pizza. “He won’t really have a life. Nat isn’t scared of him and says that she thinks she could manage him until we find a more long-term solution.”

__

Steve looked down at Peter, concern in his face, and nodded a little. “Maybe we can share, or something. If hosting isn’t super specific, maybe we can pass him around and everyone that isn’t a kid takes a share for a while. Could even out the strain.”

__

Venom sighed, curling around Peter’s fingers. _**Hate switching hosts,**_ he grumbled. _**That’s why other symbiotes don’t like us. Say I'm a loser.**_

__

“Is it going to affect Peter negatively in the short term?” Harry looked between them, alarm lighting him up, making him tense. “What kind of effects are we talking about?” His fingers wound around Peter’s hand and Venom moved slightly, but wound around both of their hands, keeping close to the phone, which was on its third video now. 

__

Peter looked down in fascination at the black tendrils holding his hand to Harry’s, glancing up at Harry to determine if it was freaking him out. Harry seemed more concerned with looking at Tony and Steve, glancing down at the darkness briefly and squeezing Peter’s hand before refocusing.

__

“It isn’t so much that it hurts him, according to Bruce, it’s more that he’s not capable of living a normal life like this.” Tony shook his head. “He can’t exactly walk into college and pound down food all class long, or snarl at the teacher when they get too close, or turn into a seven-foot-six alien and eat someone who pisses him off.”

__

_**Only bad guys,**_ Venom protested vaguely, attention on the video.

__

“Alright,” Harry relented, relaxing slightly. “We’ll find Brock, and if he can’t take his alien back, we can figure it out. Captain Rogers might be right- it might be smarter to move hosts, if possible, so no one’s life is completely turned around.”

__

Steve nodded. “It wouldn’t be so bad. A few days for every person or something.” He hesitated. “Maybe not Banner.”

__

“Clint mentioned that, Nat said no.” Tony shook his head. “Bruce thinks it’s as bad as it is with Peter because everything’s already heightened for him. He thinks a normal person would be fine. Sharing would be problematic because there’s an adjustment period directly after bonding, apparently, where the body gets sick.”

__

The smooth darkness curled around Peter and Harry’s hands moved slightly. _**Harry would be good host too.**_

__

“Wait, what the fuck?” Peter recoiled, looking down at Venom’s darkness on their hands and pulling them both away from Harry quickly. “Why?”

__

_**Anger there. Dark there. Like Eddie, but not. Eddie was angry, Eddie was brave. Harry is angry. Dark there, not like you.** _

__

Harry blinked at Peter. “What just happened? Are you okay?” He searched Peter’s face, reaching out to touch his hair carefully. “What did he do?”

__

Peter searched his face, feeling a sharp twist in his chest. “You’re wrong,” he told Venom harshly, shifting closer and curling against Harry. _Stay away from him,_ he added silently, unsure if Venom could hear him in his head. Tony and Steve were frowning slightly, but they didn’t press, instead putting on the television in a clear effort to distract the entire group.

__

The anxiety of the concept of Harry as a host and memory of Bucky slamming into the wall stayed with Peter throughout the rest of the evening, Venom paying no mind as he continued watching videos of Eddie on the phone.

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for your positive response to these chapters! We're considering adding a few more between now and the end, so don't be surprised if the chapter number fluctuates!
> 
> Comments and feedback taste better than mashed potatoes and gravy. We know, we asked Venom.


	5. Peter: Planning for the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some Peter/Harry cuddle time, a glimpse of Eddie and Venom's relationship, and the Avengers find out where LIFE is keeping Eddie.

_Everything hurt, like he was being electrocuted. Sharp fire, crackling across his body, and hands were catching him, trying to draw him in close again, catching him every time he pulled away, and it was too **much,** too **sharp,** he needed to get **away-**_

_So he ripped away, flinging himself away from the human host who had tried to hold him in, seeking escape from him, abandoning him, realizing too late what he had done-_

_A brick smashing down across a blonde forehead, blood spattering across the glass-_

Peter woke up with a hoarse noise, shoving himself backwards in bed frantically.

“Hey!” Harry caught him before he fell out of bed, supporting him and pulling him back. He hugged Peter tightly, rubbing his back. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “It’s okay. You’re okay. What’s wrong?”

_**Sorry.**_ Grief rose in his chest, hot and heavy and sharp. _**Miss him. Miss my Eddie so much… want to**_ **punish _them so much..._** Venom gave a harsh sound somewhere between a whimper and a snarl, cuddling closer into Peter’s chest as Harry rocked him, rumpling Peter’s shirt gently.

“Bad dream?” He murmured sleepily. “I’ve got you. You’re okay. Was just a dream.”

“Sorry,” Peter panted, crumpling against him. “Sorry. Bad dream.” He flattened one hand over Harry’s chest, the other over where Venom was curled above Peter’s heart. “Venom’s dream.”

“It’s okay.” Harry laid them back, curling Peter into his side, and slid his hand beneath Peter’s shirt, resting his hand on his skin. He yawned, then curled Peter a little closer, pressing his lips to the smaller boy’s hair. “We all have nightmares sometimes. What was he dreaming about?”

Venom shifted a little, pulling very slightly out of Peter’s skin and tangling in his fingers as if he too was seeking comfort. Peter hesitated, then acquiesced, rubbing him gently like he might a dog or… a seal. _Is seal really the best comparison?_ He laid his head on Harry’s chest, letting out a breath. “Being separated from his host,” he murmured. “Eddie got hit in the head with a brick, it was awful.” _The blood was everywhere and it looked so dark._

Harry made a considering noise, his thumb gently stroking along Peter’s spine. “That sounds painful,” he agreed. “I’m sorry, Pete. You said they were really close, right? Eddie wasn’t just his host?”

“I don’t know.” He shifted closer to Harry, feeling his muscles relax slowly. “He cared about him. I don’t know how or why. It’s different than with me and him, they were a _we_ and at the same time separate and together, it’s… weird.”

Venom curled more around Peter’s fingers, and then-

_Venom was curled around Eddie, spread out like a blanket. His human had forgotten to pay the heat bill again and so they’d turned it off. Venom didn’t mind, but Eddie had been shivering and so Venom was keeping him warm. He didn’t like the shivers, the discomfort that the cool air brought Eddie._

_Venom watched Eddie sleep- watching the light fall across his face, affectionately traced the curve of his lips and the angle of his jaw with his gaze. He was beautiful. Venom’s human was so unique amongst them. Venom traced over Eddie’s tattoos, tracing the shapes his human had inked into his skin. He liked watching the way they shifted and flicked as Eddie moved, reminiscent of Venom himself in a way, fluid and dark against skin._

_Eddie shifted and opened his eyes and made a low sound of thought, fingertips skimming over Venom. “What’re you doin’?” he mumbled, freeing one arm to wrap around part of the dark mass around him and hug Venom against his chest, into him where it was warm._

_**You were cold.** Venom cuddled closer happily, warm and pleased that Eddie was awake now. **Feel better now?**_

_“Yeah.” He smiled, pressing his forehead against Venom sleepily. “Love you, V. Thanks.”_

_Venom burrowed into his chest a little more, not sinking into his skin, happiness drumming through him like a heartbeat that he didn’t have, because symbiotes didn’t have hearts. Maybe that’s what Eddie was- his heart, he thought a little daftly, but didn’t care how stupid the thought was. **Love you, Eddie.**_

Venom let Peter go, let the memory slide back away. _**Not just a host,**_ he agreed quietly. 

Harry was unaware of the memory, still sleepily tracing designs on Peter’s skin. “I’m sorry for him, then. That would be very hard to lose someone like that.”

“Yeah.” Peter shifted closer, kissing Harry’s neck. He was quiet for a moment, riding out the faint echoes of Venom’s anger and longing. “Harry, are you happy?”

“Happy?” Harry sounded slightly more awake now. “Yes, I’m happy. I have you. You make me happy, I love being with you.” He kissed Peter’s ear. “You’re my favorite person in the world and I date you and sometimes sleep over.” Because, ambivalent as Tony might have been about Harry, he was still incredibly laissez-faire about sex and didn’t see why Peter’s boyfriend _wouldn’t_ stay over, regardless of Peter’s attempts to assure him that wasn’t the motivator. “Why would I not be?”

“Venom said you’re angry.” Peter curled his feet against Harry’s legs, tucking his head under Harry’s. “Are you angry?”

Harry’s fingers slowed, but didn’t stop, on Peter’s back. He was quiet for a few moments, then, “Kate told me once that some kinds of anger don’t go away. We had a similar upbringing, me and Kate. With a few differences, but it’s the same in most ways.” His lips brushed against Peter’s hair again, and Peter thought back to what he knew of Kate’s previous life- she’d never said much, but Peter had gathered enough to know that the neglect and treatment had bordered on abuse. “So yes. I am angry. But things are easier when I’m with you. For our entire lives, with you has been the only place I was allowed to be myself.”

“You are the best person, Hare. You should be you everywhere.” Peter tightened his hold on him. “You’re a good person. You’re gonna move away from your dad and the company, and things are going to get better. I promise.”

Harry laughed a little. “You think Norman’s going to allow me to stop being part of Oscorp? He would rather almost anything happen before I became a true disappointment to him, after he’s invested so much time in his asset. He’s spent all these years making the next head of the company, he’s not about to let me just move away and be _happy.”_

“It’s not up to him, you’re eighteen.” Peter frowned at the wall, shaking his head. “He can’t stop you from doing anything. He can cut you off, but that’s all. You could come work for SI or something.”

Harry burst out laughing. “Oh, that would be so bad. He would be so angry if I ended up working for a competitor.” His chuckles shook them both as he hugged Peter to him. “Doing _what,_ Pete? I’m good at managing people, good at encouraging creative endeavors, but my name will be blacklisted the second I leave Oscorp and I won’t be able to get a job. Stark might let me do something, but why? He’s got people a thousand times more experienced who had proven themselves a hundred times over. Not to mention he doesn’t like me.” He chuckled. “We’d end up in some tiny rat-infested apartment unable to even afford pizza.” His fingers stilled on Peter’s skin. “If- well. If you were thinking along those lines. Of life after you’re done with school.”

Peter blinked, then propped himself up on his elbows, grinning down at him. “You want to live in a rat-infested apartment with me?” he asked, the delight curling through his chest nearly painfully bright.

Harry was still, his expression calm in the way it only was when he was nervous. “If that’s something you’d want,” he said easily, but Peter could feel Harry’s heartbeat pounding under his hand, could feel Harry’s muscles tensing a little. “You could live here with Stark and have everything you could dream of.”

“Harry.” Peter rolled his eyes, unable to stop smiling. “I’ve been poor my whole life, I don’t really care about that. I think…” He leaned down, kissing him slowly. “I think that living with you in a shitty apartment, poor and happy, sounds amazing.”

Harry’s body sagged back into the bed as he smiled and kissed Peter back, curling a hand into his hair, relief almost coming off him in waves. “With rats and bugs? No more science tours in Oscorp, no more spectacular birthday or Christmas presents? Just dollar pizza slices and RC Cola?”

“Fans because we can’t afford AC and blankets to keep down heat costs,” Peter agreed warmly, kissing him again. He rested their foreheads together. “I want you out from under your dad’s thumb, I want you happy, and I want to be with you. That’s all I need. Everything else, we can figure out as we go.”

Harry smiled, a warm, happy smile crossing his face. “Then I’ll start looking for a place. Your semester ends in June. I want you to stay with your aunt until then, get things together, and I’ll move everything while you’re doing finals and things if you want. We’ll have a little crappy apartment with duct-tape over the windows and I’ll make you fifty-cent pasta when you come home, and you’ll have to prop your books up on the coffee table because we won’t have money for a desk.” He laughed, delight threading through the sound, and Peter felt his smile break his face in half. There was just absolutely nothing better than the sound of Harry Osborn laughing.

He opened his mouth, maybe to say something along those lines, but Jarvis interrupted him. “Mr. Parker,” he noted, “Agent Romanov has made developments on the LIFE Foundation location.”

_**Eddie!**_ Venom yanked Peter up into a sitting position on Harry’s legs, and Harry steadied him quickly. _**“Did she find Eddie?”**_

“Jesus,” Peter snapped, catching the wall for balance. “Dude, we’re really fast, you can’t just _move_ like that when we’re touching someone else.”

“She is meeting with Sergeant Barnes, Mr. Stark, and Agent Barton in the conference room at the moment,” Jarvis reported, and Peter sighed as he found himself standing and heading for the door, propelled by Venom.

“Harry, I’ll be right back- unless you want to come- I mean, come up there, you’re definitely not coming _with_ us-”

Harry laughed and stood, stretching, and fell into step with Peter, pulling two hoodies out of the drawer where he kept a few sets of clothes for evenings like these. He put one over Peter’s head and pulled the other over himself. “I’d like to see how this turns out,” he agreed. “So exciting. I feel like a junior Avenger.”

Peter laughed, stepping into the elevator with him. “Junior Avenger,” he muttered, shaking his head. “I hate that we’re the ‘young’ or ‘junior’ team. I mean, we _are_ young, but still. I just want to be a _real_ Avenger.” He flashed Harry a smile, trying to breathe through the excitement, anticipation, and urgency that Venom was pounding through his system.

Venom actually pulled out of his skin slightly as they entered the conference room, flowing over Peter’s skin. He didn’t take a full form, remembering how much Tony hadn’t liked it and clearly understanding that he needed to keep Tony happy to an extent, but took Peter’s voice anyway. _**“Eddie?”**_ he demanded as soon as the door opened. _**“You found Eddie and LIFE?”**_

“God.” Clint shook his head. “Pete, we need to get that thing out of you. You’re too cinnamony to sound like that.” He gave Nat a grin. “That’s a Kate word. She taught it to me yesterday.”

“God.” Nat rolled her eyes, but she was smiling slightly. She focused on Venom. “We don’t know if Brock is there. Their servers are solid enough that I’d have to hack in in person to get any concrete information on whether or not he’s alive or there. It is fact that it _is_ the LIFE Foundation in that facility, even if they aren’t exactly broadcasting it right now. Clint, Tony, Bucky, and I are going to go in with you.”

“Not Steve?” Peter asked in surprise. Tony made a face, studying a tablet, and Bucky cleared his throat.

“He sleeps like the dead and we need someone here to keep an eye on Harley, Harry, and Kate.”

“So you’re sneaking out,” Peter surmised.

“He’s going to be so mad,” Clint mused, and Harry stifled a laugh in his fist, pretending to cough a little.

“I can go back home so you don’t need to watch me,” he said, amusement in his eyes. “One less teenager to guard.”

_**“Let’s go,”**_ Venom said, losing patience with this discussion. The image of Eddie falling played over and over in their head, how he’d hit the ground, the harsh sound of his voice, the dark spots in Eddie’s organs that Venom had found on the first day as Eddie’s symbiote and how he had healed them constantly since. Cancer, Peter realized suddenly. Eddie had cancer and Venom healed it every day. _**“Eddie needs us.”**_

Nat exchanged a glance with Tony and nodded. “We good?”

“Yeah.” He started out the door and Peter turned, leaning up to kiss Harry. 

“Stay here?” he requested. “I want to be able to see you when I get back. I don’t know how this is going to go.”

If Eddie was dead, and Venom suffered through that knowledge, Peter was going to crave Harry’s reassurance like nothing else.

Concern flared in Harry’s light eyes and he nodded, kissing Peter back. “Sure,” he agreed. “I’ll stay, work on a few things. Be safe, okay?” He brushed Peter’s hair back. “I need you to come back.”

“Gross,” Clint said with a grin, getting up and following Nat and Tony.

“Stop that,” Bucky agreed, ruffling Harry’s hair with a grin as they passed. Peter chuckled, smiling up at Harry.

“I’m always safe,” he agreed, leaning up and kissing him again. “You can do whatever, you know the tower’s open. I love you, I’ll be home soon.” He shrugged, pulling away, and jogged to catch up with his team.

The heli ride was quiet. Tony went ahead of them to do stealth and recon, and Bucky and Nat agreed to go in together while Clint stayed with the plane and provided cover if they had to make a quick exit. Peter was designated to tie people up whenever possible with the webbing, but to try to keep himself and Venom out of the fight as much as possible.

_**But we can get people, we can tear through everything, we are stronger. They are human. Mostly.**_ Venom eyed Bucky, whose eyes were hard and focused, and Nat, who was moving with that deadly ease she always did right before a mission. _**Should mask-on and form and destroy. Find Eddie.**_

“We’re not killing anyone,” Peter disagreed immediately as the helicopter lowered.

_**They are bad people. We are allowed to eat bad people.** _

“We are _not,”_ Peter maintained sharply. “We don’t kill anyone. I don’t kill anyone. It’s not up for debate.”

_**We will see.**_ Violence and promise in that low voice, and Peter clenched his hands into fists.

Natasha eyed him, then focused ahead, likely already coming up with contingency plans. “We’ll get in, I’ll start hacking. Tony and James will work with you, Peter, and I’ll comm in once I find anything. Everyone ready?”

Small murmurs of assent and she brushed the back of her hand absently against Clint’s cheek, taking an arrow from his quiver and tucking it into the instep of her boot. She nodded to Peter and Bucky and jumped down, landing lightly on her feet and heading toward the building, Tony already blasting through the front doors ahead of them. Peter arranged the comm in his ear, catching the end of Natasha saying something to Clint as he and Bucky jumped down after her.

Clint leaned out of the copter, flicking his bow out. _“Idi ko mne domoy,”_ he said, watching her go.

_“Ya vsegda delayu,”_ she agreed, a smile in her voice in Peter’s ear, and Bucky rolled his eyes.

“You guys are as gross as Peter and Harry,” he muttered, jogging off to catch up with her. Peter grinned a little- it had to suck to be the only other person on the team who spoke Russian and had to listen to whatever it was that Clint and Nat didn’t feel like saying in English.

Clint focused on Peter. “Be good, be safe, kick them into next week and bring back Brock so you stop stressing out Tony and our kickass ex-assassin doesn’t have to host. Cool?” He nocked an arrow.

“Will do,” Peter agreed, turning and running. It never failed to annoy Bucky that Peter was faster than him, which had never failed to be funny until this moment, with so much on the line and so much anxiety and anger burning through Peter’s system from Venom. Nat peeled off the group early in, settling herself behind a computer and starting to work, and Peter focused on his usual job of webbing up enemies that the others had disarmed or knocked down.

There was a low, inhuman roar from across the hall and he stilled, looking around sharply. “Venom, how many of you are there?”

Venom spread across his skin rapidly, encasing him in his sleek darkness as he manifested entirely. _**“Millions,”**_ he said, prowling forward. _**“We were four when LIFE found us. Riot is dead and the two others died as well, we are the only one left. But there are millions more above, not here, but there. LIFE could have brought more.”**_

_Great,_ Peter thought grimly, vaguely aware of Bucky and Tony exchanging looks and then simply forging forward with renewed determination. Peter was assuming that as much as they hated this, Venom’s skin was more durable than Peter’s, so they were ignoring it.

Bucky’s skin wasn’t durable. Neither was Nat’s. Tony’s suit helped, but… He was certain that a symbiote would be able to rip through that metal like it was nothing. Anxiety burrowed in him and he took a deep breath. “Venom,” he said, unsure if his voice would even come out, “You need to keep them safe, they’re here to help you and Eddie.”

_**They will survive this.**_ He was taking control more and more, smashing enemies into the wall with too much force, the fury and need for revenge that had been constantly simmering in the back of their joint mind finally reaching a boiling point and being unleashed on the guards rushing forward to shoot at them. _**They are the only ones I can guarantee that for.**_

“Venom, we aren’t killing people!” Peter wasn’t sure what anger was his and what was Venom’s, where his body began and Venom’s ended anymore. Everything was too blurred together, everything made too little sense. Their claws ripped across someone’s chest as there was another roar, this one closer. Peter’s yell of outrage and admonition was lost in the inhuman sound, and Venom threw the wounded guard aside like an empty package, prowling forward. 

He bounded up, digging into the walls as he dodged bullets and fought the various targets so foolishly approaching them. Tony and Bucky were ducking into rooms to search them, exchanging looks every so often but not _stopping_ the chaos that Venom was using Peter to perpetuate. Why weren’t they stopping this? The blunt force alone had to be doing fatal damage to some of these people, some of these people who could have had other paths and futures in life-

_**They took our other. They broke him open and took me out and spilled his blood across the street. This is their only future in life.** _

“Venom, it doesn’t have to be like that! If you give them a chance, they could learn! They could change, they-”

Venom flashed brief flickers of Peter’s own memory at him in response, villains who had repeatedly escaped custody or jail and gone right back to ruining lives. An arm broke between their hands and Venom was talking to Bucky and Tony, offering them advice on how to fight the other symbiote there as he listened to its approaching roars, but Peter couldn’t focus on any of that, too busy trying to pull back from the violence, trying to lock down his muscles.

It wasn’t really effective, but maybe the swings and punches were a little slower than they would have been? A little more muted? 

Peter had to believe he was doing _something_ to help.

Bullets rained toward Bucky’s unprotected back when he turned to help Tony with a hand-to-hand fighter and Venom _shifted,_ creating a shield out of his blackness and blocking the projectiles. Some of the anger in Peter’s mind quieted slightly and he found that this time he didn’t mind so much when Venom smashed the shooter into the wall with bone-breaking force.

“I’ve got info on Brock,” Natasha was saying through the comm. “He-”

And then the door to their left broke open, a massive and muscled silver-red symbiote standing there, and all hell broke loose again as it lunged, claws outstretched to tear through them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are so close to the end now! Nik and I hope you guys are enjoying- this has been so much fun to write and we've loved interacting with you all!
> 
> Comments are adored- we LOVE to talk to our readers.
> 
> Come say hi or ask us questions on [Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/goosenik) sometime!


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